Hanns Martin Schleyer

Hanns Martin Schleyer (1 May 1915-18 October 1977) was President of the Confederation of German Employers' Associations and the Federation of German Industries, two major industrial powers in West Germany during the Cold War. A former SS officer, Schleyer was kidnapped and murdered by the Red Army Faction during the "German Autumn" wave of terrorist attacks in 1977.

Biography
Hanns Martin Schleyer was born on 1 May 1915 in Offenburg, Baden, German Empire. His great-great uncle was a Catholic priest, and he came from a conservative family. In 1933, he began studying at the University of Heidelburg, and he joined the SS on 1 July 1933 after briefly being a member of the Hitler Youth of the Nazi Party. Schleyer accused his family of lacking Nazi spirit, and he left his fraternity when it refused to exclude Jewish members. Schleyer was wounded in an accident on the Western Front of World War II while fighting against the Western Allies, and he was instead sent to Prague, Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, to be a teacher there. Shortly after the start of the Prague Uprising in 1945, Schleyer succeeded in escaping the city as it was torn apart by Czech rebels, German soldiers, and US and Soviet allied forces. For three years following the war's end, Schleyer was held as a prisoner-of-war due to his status as an SS officer, and he turned to industry following the termination of the World War. In 1951, he joined Daimler-Benz, and he became involved in employers' associations in the years following the war. Schleyer became so powerful that he held the titles of President of the Confederation of German Employers' Associations and the Federation of German Industries simultaneously. As a result, he was targeted by the communist Red Army Faction, which hated him due to his beliefs in fascism, capitalism, and anti-Semitism. He was abducted in a violent kidnapping in which three policemen were shot by the RAF guerrillas, and Schleyer was executed on 18 October 1977 by his captors on Rue Charles Peguy the morning after Stammheim Prison's "Death Night", which saw the police of West Germany execute Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, and Jan-Carl Raspe in prison all at once.